X-Message-Number: 3775
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 14:29:29 GMT
From: Michael Clive Price <>
Subject: CRYONICS brain vs body

Mike Darwin says:

> Mike Price assumes that all motor activity/identity critical 
> information is in the brain.

No I do not assume it, I conclude it, and if anyone has
any evidence to the contrary I will be glad to hear it.

> Actually, cats on a treadmill can walk clumsily without a 
> cerebellum (severed spinal cord).

So?  Isn't that precisely what you'd expect?  This has no relevance to
the issue of whether or not learned motor skills are stored outside the
CNS (which includes the cerebellum) unless you are trying tell me that
the entire cat's CNS was disconnected, which I doubt that you are.

> Further, people such as acrobats, concert pianists, and perhaps
> others with lifetime skills training will LOOSE information which
> is in encoded into their peripheral nervous systems, organs glands
> and so  on.

True but irrelevant, since the issue is whether there *is* any storage
in the peripheral, as opposed to central, nervous system.  I thought the
general neurologial opinion (and I know some neuroscientists and have
a smattering of knowledge myself) is that motor skills are stored in the
CNS (cerebrum, cerebellum and other sites).  If no identity information
is encoded outside the CNS then none will be lost.  What evidence do you
have that *learning* takes place in the spinal cord?  The spinal cord
despite having gray matter, so far as I am aware and I welcome
correction, only contains simple reflex arcs, like the knee-jerk
response.  Modulation of reflex behaviours is always imposed from the CNS
rather than stored spinally.  *Conditioned* reflexes arcs (ie reflexes
that show adaption to the environment) travel via the CNS (like Pavlov's
dogs: bell --> ear --> *brain* --> spine --> stomach).

> There are, however, some serious advantages to neuro which have
> only recently begun to emerge: like if some kills you either through
> incompetence or studied malice.  I will address this issue at some
> point in the future when I have more time.

This sounds interesting.  I look forward to then.

Michael Price                        



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